Take The Pieces One By One
by Luinramwen
Summary: A series of shortfic with a variety of characters, keeping lyrics in mind as a spark. Ranges from inappropriate France, day-jobs, flowers and freeze-rays, to all that cannot be replaced.
1. World I Wanted At My Feet

_Take The Pieces One By One - Hetalia Drabbles_

**World I Wanted At My Feet  
**

Genre: general, overall

Rating: PG-13

Characters: America, England

Warnings: ugh, tons of angst, sorry about that.

Disclaimer: yeah, don't own _Everything He Ever_ or Hetalia

Notes for the series: This is _not_ the meme you might think it is. There should be more than ten (well, barely) for starters, and most were not written strictly to the length of the song, although you can be assured that at least the skeleton of it was. Some of them clearly surpass that limit, and I would be sorry but I'm not. Basically I'm just using music to spark off a quick idea. If you follow the Hetalia community on Livejournal, you may have already seen this posted about a week or so ago. Broken into chapters for sheer arbitrariness' sake. Kthx.

-

He should be happy, he thinks, mind as numb as the drenched skin the rain pours ceaselessly over. He got what he wanted, in the end, without resistance. He got what he wanted. His land is his. His people are his. Nothing left to stop him from becoming who he knows, one day, he's going to be.

But mud splatters navy knees, and rain soaks and darkens brilliant red to blood, and shoulders are shaking, and the rain is too heavy to tell, but the wretched involuntary hitchings of the other's breath tell him that he's crying. And that's not what he wanted, this is not right, he was supposed to hate him, to fight him, to make this easy by pushing away as hard as he was pushed, but of course nothing is ever easy. Did he think he could just walk away like that? Did he really think he could leave, and cause no one any pain?

The world is rain, and mud sucking at his boots, dripping empty fingers hanging uselessly at his sides, cold and grey and body hunched in on itself, shoulders slack with betrayal, back tense with the need to hide it away, to pretend it doesn't hurt as much as it does. And there's a void in his heart where _he_ had always been, and as he forces himself to turn away, he hasn't decided yet whether it feels like birth, or like ending, or more than a little of both.

-


	2. I Am Not Lonely, Swear to God

**I Am Not Lonely, Swear To God, I'm Just Alone  
**

Genre: gen/angst

Rating: PG

Characters: Prussia

Warnings: nothing really

Disclaimer: yeah, don't own _Sound Of_ or Hetalia

-

The house was empty. All that was left was dust and memories. He was a little surprised that it hadn't already been torn down. The spare key was still where he'd always left it, in the little clay pot tucked under the bushes, out of sight, and it fit into the lock as well as always, although it was a little stiff when he tried to turn it.

The door creaked open, and Prussia stepped cautiously inside, half-expecting ghosts of the past to drift out from the gaping doors and dark hallways within.

He probably shouldn't have come back, but it was hard not to haunt the old place when he felt like a ghost himself.

There was nothing left. It was just an empty house in a German city in German territory, as though he'd never existed. He thought maybe he should resent his brother for that, but he didn't. It probably wasn't really his fault.

Prussia sat on the floor, crossing his legs, and drew in the dust, absent whorls and shapes at first. Then the eagle took shape, his eagle, wings spread wide and proud, and each sweep of finger over worn dusty wood brought back old memories slowly growing out of the dirt and the absence. Ghosts in the grime. That should be sad, somehow, but he wasn't sad. Just because something's empty and abandoned doesn't mean it's irretrievably lost.

Every detail, every feather, perfectly delineated and clear. He looked at it for a long moment after he finished, wiping his finger on his pants. It didn't matter. He should scuff it out before someone else moved in and saw it lying there, a pathetic cry to the ages: _Prussia was here. And fell._

He left it. Locked the door behind him, and tucked the key into his pocket, then shoved his hands in after and strode off, whistling cheerily.

"Who's awesome?" he said aloud to nobody. Answered, grinning, though something inside still felt like dust and bare floorboards. "_I'm_ awesome. So I can't let people forget me. It. Ha, I wonder if Austria's home so I can go pester him?"

-


	3. Not That You Probably Care

**Not That You Probably Care  
**

Genre: humour

Rating: PG-13

Characters: England, France

Warnings: ridiculousness?

Disclaimer: yeah, don't own _I'm Not Wearing Underwear Today_ or Hetalia

-

"Put your goddamn clothes on already!" England yelled, cherry red, and France took off gleefully across the man's yard, feeling the breeze caressing his pale skin.

"And deprive your pitiable country of seeing the wonders of the French landscape? I think_ not_~!"

_"Get back here, you gitfaaaace!"_

-


	4. I Will Always Be With You

**I Will Always Be With You  
**

Genre: tragedy

Rating: PG-13

Characters: France, Jeanne d'Arc

Warnings: um, angst

Disclaimer: don't own _Love You To Death_ or Hetalia

-

When they met, she was fifteen. He had never met a mortal quite like her, and it would be a very, very long time before he found someone else that might bring her to mind.

"I know who you are," she told him, and even dirty, and in rough hardworn boy's clothing, she shone with a light from within that drew him like a flame.

He teased. "Such a wise little one you are! Then who am I, my dear?"

"Beloved," she said, serious, calm, and that threw him, because she was mortal, she was barely out of childhood. She was so beautiful. Glowing from the inside. "Beloved France."

He did what he could to save her, but it wasn't enough, and she had always known it wouldn't be. He'd gone to see her, that last night, before the end, and held her small frail calloused hands that had handled sword and needle in their time, had pulled hard on the threads of fate and changed his world. "It was never your fault," she said, and kissed the back of his right hand. He'd never been so ashamed of his soft blemish-free skin, feeling that touch, seeing her eyes filled with knowledge beyond even him. "The saints spoke to me, and told me this day would come."

"You're so young," he said, and the tears came without his permission. "So young, my Jeanne, you deserved so much more than this."

"I saved you, though," she said. "And I will always be with you, will I not?" Touched his cheek, fingers striped pale and grey in the moonlight and the shadows of the bars of her cell. Her eyes were too bright this night, too liquid, but he would say nothing to her about it; she had every right. "Beloved France."

There were a lot of things he'd forgiven England for - for what was the point of holding grudges long after everyone concerned was dead, even for one of their kind? - but when Jeanne burned, he knew that even if he tried, this was one hurt he could never forgive or forget.

-


	5. Done Nothing Else But Smile

**Done Nothing Else But Smile  
**

Genre: friendship/romance

Rating: PG-13

Characters: Canada, Holland, Ukraine, America

Warnings: fluff?

Disclaimer: don't own _Fast as I Can_ or Hetalia

-

He pushes the bouquet into his arms, profusions of white, red, and yellow filling his vision until all he can see are glad good feelings.

"Thank you so much," he tells him, and lowers the flowers so he can see the other better, pale eyes and shock of straw-blond hair, tan skin and old scars. He's never met him before, but he knows him. He came up out of the sea, long, long ago, and plowed the empty seabed until it grew verdant and fertile, and himself strong enough to leave and search for other, drier shores. All that was long ago, though. Now, he smiles warmly at him.

"No," Holland insists. "Thank _you_." Once-strong arms grasp at his, tight and insistent, and Canada is a little overwhelmed by the intensity in a face normally lacking any serious motivation, these days. "My people were dying, they were starving. You have made yourself my most important friend. I will never forget you."

Canada has to hold back sudden involuntary tears. He doesn't think Holland has the slightest idea how much that promise is worth to him, if he means it.

It seems he means it. Every spring, there are tulips by the thousands, and Holland comes to stay in Canada's house, a laughing, friendly presence that brightens Canada's spring as much as the flowers, and he doesn't know how to deal with it, how to deal with a person who likes him so much and never forgets his name. He thinks maybe he would do anything to make Holland smile, to have him return again the next year.

"You are Canada," Holland says, when he shows that trepidation, the fear that he won't come back. As though that explains everything. "I like you very much. I'll always be back."

America doesn't believe him when he tells him there's someone who never mistakes him for anyone else (and by _anyone else_, he means _America_). Canada just smiles, and arranges tulips in vases. It doesn't bother him as much as it normally would, now.

He smiles at most people who forget him, now, because he knows there are people who will not. He smiles a lot more, and not always self-deprecatingly. Ukraine catches him one day after a meeting and says: "Who's this person who's doing this for you?"

Canada's not sure how to answer that.

"It's wonderful," she says. "You're definitely more yourself than you've ever been before." And she hugs him close, smiling, eyes shimmering a little, and she was the first to know who he was, always, and he won't forget that either, he's so grateful for her affection, but the truth is that even when she bakes him sweet hot bread made from wheat of her wide fields, to tide him through the winter, his thoughts are already bending towards the spring and not on the months of ice and snow.

Holland is pleased when Canada embraces him warmly, for the first time, before he leaves in late May. Canada's been emboldened by years of shared understanding and warm smiles and bright blossoms, and Holland holds him like he doesn't want to let go. "I love you, you know that," Holland says, and Canada's throat almost locks itself shut involuntarily.

"I -" he begins, because they're not words he'd thought of before, not words he's ever said to anyone, and he feels it, he feels truth moving through him like a brook leaping towards the sea, and it shouldn't be hard to say welcome truth. "I - I also - it's - you - well, I -"

Holland smiles, fondly, at his stammering attempts until he finally gives up, humiliated and somehow ashamed, but there is no scorn in that smile and Canada just doesn't know what to do anymore. "Don't strain yourself, _geliefd_. In time. All in good time."

-


	6. Chomp, Chomp, Chomp

**Chomp, Chomp, Chomp  
**

Genre: humour, slight AU

Rating: PG-13

Characters: Australia

Warnings: none really, unless you are offended by implications of songs about wild animals devouring children to pass the time.

Disclaimer: don't own _Rippy the Gator_ or Hetalia

-

He finishes the song with a flourish, and then the show goes to commercial, and Australia leaves the set flushed with energy to the cheers of the child studio audience. The Crocodilian Special, third episode of this season's twenty-one of Wildapalooza, seems to be going swimmingly. Maybe he might even get a full-time position on the cast if the ratings are high enough! He'd like that. Sometimes it's boring doing paperwork and political mucking about all day long.

The children are still cheering and going, "Chomp, chomp, chomp!" at intervals when he runs into the director backstage.

"I - what in the - you - that was... horrible - inappropriate - morbidly, morally objectionable - you're fired!" splutters the director, slowly going purple.

Australia laughs, and doubts it.

-


	7. Worries For Another Day

**Worries For Another Day  
**

Genre: humour

Rating: PG-13

Characters: America, England

Warnings: none really

Disclaimer: don't own the _Fraggle Rock _theme or Hetalia

-

"There are Fraggles in your walls," England tells him seriously one day.

"There's what?" America stares at him.

"Quite a large and happy group of them, yes. I hear them singing sometimes in the evening when I'm visiting." England looks in complete earnest. America can usually tell when he's lying, and he's not stammering, not spiky and over-defensive, not looking at him as though he's only trying to believe he's stupid or crazy or the most exasperating thing in the world since France. He obviously believes he's telling the truth. America sighs.

"England, Fraggles aren't real. They're... they're just puppets. Puppets on a _children's TV show_."

"Oh, they're real all right," England says, sharply. "I keep finding postcards in your rubbish bin."

"What? What does that have to do with anything?"

"A bloody lot, actually." Oh, now he's glaring. "I don't know who this Henson fellow is, but he's obviously one American who still knows how to see things beyond the mundane. You can't tell me that Fraggles aren't real when I can hear them singing behind the walls and banging on the pipes and find postcards addressed to them in the rubbish."

"I can. This is my house and I think I'd know if there were little furry bug-eyed singing creatures living somewhere behind my walls."

"There's a great big hole in the baseboard in the guest wing that wasn't made by rats or mice."

"So maybe there was a badger infestation here once, I don't keep track of that sort of thing! There aren't any Fraggles, England. Honestly. You're really completely crazy, you know that?"

England throws up his hands and storms out of the room, muttering imprecations.

"I think you made that other silly creature pretty angry," comments a rather pompous voice from about knee-height. "Now don't you think you're being ridiculous? Even silly creatures, uncivilized as you are, should be able to learn how to get along."

"It's his fault for seeing things that don't exist in the first place," America mutters, and then something occurs to him. "Wait, what -?"

He looks around, and sees nothing. Then he looks down.

America's yell all but shakes the walls.

England pauses in closing the guest room door behind him, and can't stop a smirk, even as some concern enters his thoughts. "I do hope Travelling Mat wasn't too badly frightened by that great git..."

-


	8. All These Things If I Were King

**All These Things If I Were King**

Genre: general

Rating: PG

Characters: Prussia, Germany

Warnings: none

Disclaimer: don't own _When I Am King_ or Hetalia

-

"I'd be the greatest nation the world has ever seen," Prussia brags, and Germany nods, to please his older brother, even though he knows it could never be true.

"Yeah, if I were king of the world... that would be pretty fucking awesome. Everyone would have to bow down and recognize my awesomeness. I could make up laws too. Anyone who plays the piano has to wear a big goofy hat when he goes out in public, and he can't take it off or he's fined. Frying pans would be outlawed as dangerous weapons. And I could get people to bar up Russia behind a _real_ Iron Curtain so he can't go around being a creeper to decent people like... like those Baltics, and me, any more. Everyone's vital regions would be all mine!" He chortled.

Germany sighs, presses his fingers to his temple, and wonders if he's going to get any more paperwork done that day or if Prussia is going to share his unemployed and unemployable self-proclaimed "awesome" self with him for the rest of the week.

"I wouldn't need a country any more," Prussia goes on, tone full of bravado. "Who needs a frickin' country when you control the world? I could just take the vital regions of anyone I wanted, occupy them until I got bored. Move on. Yeah, that's the life. And with me in control, nobody would need to worry about stupid things like wars or being invaded by anyone else. And it would be awesome."

Germany knows him well enough to know when he's trying to convince himself. He sets down his pen for a moment and turns to look his brother in the eyes. He's not sure whether to tell him that there's no such position as "king of the world" and never will be, or if he should tell his brother he's impressed that he's already got his uncertain future so positively under control. He's not sure what Prussia needs to hear more. He knows what he _wants _to hear though, which is not the same thing at all.

He ends up just raising an eyebrow, not saying a word. Prussia clears his throat and turns away, striking a pose. "And another thing! When I am king, sunrise will come when I say it does, and not a moment sooner! Also -"

Germany goes back to his paperwork. His brother goes his own way in his own style, and he can't change that. Doesn't really want to.

-


	9. For The World's More Full of Weeping

**For The World's More Full of Weeping Than Ye Can Understand  
**

Genre: ...fantasy?

Rating: PG-13

Characters: England, France

Warnings: none really

Disclaimer: don't own _Stolen Child_ or Hetalia

-

Nobody else remembers the time he disappeared into the woods for almost a century.

He'd been very small at the time. France had been Gallia then, and preoccupied with Rome and the Goths. He'd had no spare time for little Brittania, who would still paint himself blue on occasions and go off screaming and slinging rocks at Romans. England had been glad of that, when he'd been Brittania. He had loved the woods and the streams and the ceremonies under sickle and full moon, loved them alone, and France-who-had-been-Gallia had thought him barbaric even then; when he was there, he would spoil all Brittania's fun.

There had been no one the day he followed the singing and the light into the woods, England remembers. Just him and the whisper of the breeze, and the most haunting, ethereal voice, calling, calling him home. Centuries later, he would hear the ring of wet crystal goblets as a finger dragged around the rim for the first time, and he would think, _yes. Exactly like that_, and not remember why he had thought it until even later.

He remembers mist on the hills and dew on the grass, cold on his bare feet. Remembers trees like great pillars in halls that then-Gallia had taken him to once, showing off the wonders of what Rome could do. Remembers moss underfoot, giving and woolly, remembers pale sunlight creeping through the trees, lighting his path towards...

He remembers pools of starlight, silver fish slipping past his fingers, the red sweet sunwarmed juice of summer berries, trees with branches of emerald hoards, lit up in the twilight by fireflies and pixies. He remembers learning the languages of birds and fish, trees and flowers, insects - everything, it seemed, spoke in those days. Everything had a voice. He remembers how he drank it all in like fairy wine and buried it inside himself like dragon's treasure, but the spot where it was buried is nothing but a dusty hole now.

He remembers being happy. So happy that everything else pales before it.

He remembers waking up one morning in a haymow, alone, the smell of livestock and poverty around him, the fairy-world gone as though it had never existed.

He doesn't remember why it had to end, and sometimes he wonders if it would hurt any less if he knew the reason for his exile.

_(And sometimes the wind whispers of memories fading, significantly insignificant, sunwarmed and full of colours long extinct, and he thinks it might be as simple as that everyone has to grow up sometime)_

-


	10. And I Wondered if I E'er Again

**And I Wondered if I E'er Again Would See My London Lights  
**

Genre: family/hurt/comfort

Rating: PG

Characters: America, Canada

Warnings: nothing really

Disclaimer: yeah, don't own _England_ or Hetalia

-

The wind blew wild and chill across the rocky, barren strand, and Canada huddled close to his brother, who was shivering in the wintery air. The sea was steel and empty as far as the eye could see. It had been empty for weeks now.

"Do you think he's coming?" America said, finally, and Canada shook his head, helplessly, jolted from thoughts of rolling green hills, pleasant farmland, quiet misty, rainy days hanging over cobbled streets.

"I don't think he is," he said, and he tried not to look too closely at the steely emptiness that flattened America's blue eyes, the look that he knew was mirrored so closely in his own.

"He promised," America said, voice as flat as his eyes.

"I know." Canada took his hand in his own, squeezed it tightly, and America squeezed back, fingers cold in his own, eyes never leaving the grey expanse of waters spreading across the world in front of their feet. Two lines of footprints were just visible above the high tide line on the beach to their right, disappearing into the trees, the only sign of humanity for miles and miles.

And the sea was steel and empty, too wide to see across.

-


	11. Stand Back Everyone

**Stand Back Everyone  
**

Genre: crack AU!crossover universe

Rating: PG-13

Characters: Russia, Lithuania, America

Warnings: language?

Disclaimer: don't own _A Man's Gotta Do_ or Hetalia

-

All Dr. Soviet needed was the wonderflonium, and then he could finally be on his way to assimilating the world. The plan was perfect. The transport van was right on time. There weren't even any guards. There was no one in sight to watch him, no one would even know he'd stolen it until it was gone -

"R-Russia?" A familiar voice, calling to him from down the block. Lithuania was jogging towards him. Dr. Soviet ignored his assistant - he was in the middle of his plan, and he had no choice but to follow through no matter what - and pressed the button on the remote for the gas. The van took off, flying driverless down the street. Dr. Soviet smirked. Success -

"Russia, look out, it's -!"

He didn't need to ask what it was, because it - he - had just landed on top of the van, denting it and sending it careening crazily off-course.

"Stand back everyone, nothing here to see!"

Dr. Soviet wanted to hit his head against the brick wall beside him, but that whackjob had just taken out his remote device, locking the van into acceleration, and if he was going to keep anyone from being unnecessarily killed, he was going to have to weave it through startled traffic and pedestrians, and that idiot had just leapt off the roof as though no possible harm could come to anyone now that he had killed the remote. Dr. Soviet couldn't run it into a wall. That would bump the wonderflonium, and god knew what sort of thing would happen after that sort of impact triggered a reaction in it. He had images of half the city blackened, in pieces, frozen forever out of time. He had to -

It was headed for Lithuania. Dr. Soviet's fingers went numb inside his gloves.

_Brakes brakes brakes brakes brakes -! _He jabbed so frantically at the pad that it only occurred to him later that he could have broken the screen. Simultaneously to this, the idiot leapt in front of the van, one careless shove pushing Lithuania, stumbling, out of the way, and into a pile of rubbish in the alleyway he was level with, and now Dr. Soviet could care less if the brakes worked, which was probably why his last stab at the pad, finishing itself automatically though the danger to his assistant was gone, finally activated the brakes, and the van screeched to a halt inches before hitting the indefatigable self-proclaimed hero of the hour.

"You could have fucking killed him!" Dr. Soviet yelled, stalking towards the idiot, his unfortunate archnemesis, Captain Freedom, who merely laughed loud and raucous.

"As if! I'm the hero!"

Dr. Soviet resisted the urge to wrap his hands around the man's neck. The wonderflonium was still safe. No one had gotten hurt. He might have to fight his way out if Captain Freedom decided to be an even greater pain in the ass, but it was nothing he hadn't done before. It could have been so much worse.

He got an idea of how when Lithuania crawled out of the heap of rubbish and Captain Freedom pulled him to his feet. The look in Lithuania's eyes made the bottom drop out of Dr. Soviet's stomach. The responding, suddenly dawning, look in Captain Freedom's eyes made the rest of it threaten to crawl up his throat and suicide.

It can always get _so_ much worse.

-


End file.
